Dirty Little Secret- All American Rejects

Irene sat at her kitchen table staring at her sister with narrowed eyes. Wendy Seulgi and Yeri had all been taken home thanks to Tiffany, who seemed to think that the two sisters needed to talk about their...discovery.

“Tae.” 

“Irene.” 

Irene leaned forward and spread her arms out. “Are you married?” 

“Are you married?” Taeyeon countered. 

“Can you take this seriously!” Irene huffed. Taeyeon gave her a mischievous smile. “When did you get married?”

“Hmm,” Taeyeon said, shifting her eyes around. “I don’t know…” 

It had been hours since Irene had begun to interrogate her sister. Every response becomes sillier than the last. Ireme could tell her sister was skating around the response, she just couldn’t understand why.

“I give up.” Irene slumped in her chair before hearing a knock on the door. Curious she left her smug sister in the kitchen to answer it. “Ms. Choi?” It was her sister’s friend, the lawyer that ate all the food. She never really interacted with her, other than on Tae’s birthday when Ms. Choi and Yoona held a pie-eating contest. 

“What do you want?” Taeyeon asked with a sigh from the hallway. Sooyoung looked at her with a smirk. “Don’t give me that look, I know you knew more than you led on.” 

“Taeyeonie, don’t look so defeated,” Sooyoung said with a smirk. “I told you that this would work out for the best.” 

Taeyeon scoffed and sat on one of the couches. “I should’ve gotten the marriage annulled and moved to a deep cave where no one would find me,” Taeyeon muttered. 

“Oh so it’s true?” Irene muttered. Sooyoung laughed in response and sat down before looking at Irene’s rigid stance.

“Irene, sit down, you’re hovering is making me hungry.” Sooyoung said. She looked at the sisters who were now side by side on the couch. “Now, I am here because your mother wanted me to explain to you the benefits that are being granted to you both now that their business is opening to another international branch.”

“This is shop talk?” Taeyeon groaned while Irene nodded slowly. She wasn’t used to the discussion of assets and all, only beginning the participation a couple of months ago when her parents expanded originally. “Fine, lay it on. Simple though, Irene is still learning.” 

“Right,” Sooyoung said, pulling out the sheets. “So, Mrs. Kim stressed that all new ventures would be divided in three, one for you, one for Irene, and one for the shareholders. So now that the revenue has come in, you are entitled to transfer your amount to your banks.”

“And we had to go over this because…” Taeyeon said with a roll of her eyes. 

“Because I needed to inform Irene of the way she wants to begin to divide her assets. She only has one account right now and it might be unwise to-”

“I trust your judgment, Mrs. Choi… if possible I would like to open a separate savings account that I can have as a joint account. Is that possible?” Sooyoung nodded. “Then put any new income from my parents in there.” 

“Does Irene have a potential suitor?” Sooyoung asked with a gleam in her eye. Taeyeon threw a pillow at her while Irene blushed. “Hey!” Taeyeon laughed when the pillow hit Sooyoung directly in the face. She composed herself before flipping to a new file. “You and your sister aren’t all that different Irene.” Irene looked to Sooyoung with wonder as she saw Taeyeon’s eyes grow wide. “I assume you are putting this in your joint account Taeyeonie? For you and Tiffany?” 

The sound of the door opening distracted everyone enough for Taeyeon to not answer Sooyoung’s question. Tiffany Hwang walked in with a surprised smile and bags of food. She caught the eye of the lawyer and smiled brightly at her. “Sooyoung?” 

“Tiffany!” Sooyoung said with glee. Taeyeon sat pouting at the sight. “You’re just in time Tiffany!”

“Time for what?” Tiffany asked as she walked down the hall to the kitchen to put the food down. 

“Didn’t Taeyeon tell you about your joint account?” 

Irene’s head snapped to her sister who was glaring at the lawyer before her. “Aren’t you supposed to have a confidentiality clause or something,” Taeyeon muttered.

“I can’t not tell your wife about her open bank accounts, she has legal rights to them too.” Irene’s mouth hung open, her eyes as hard as steel as she saw Taeyeon bury herself in one of the pillows on the couch. Sooyoung looks between them with a concerned look. “Something tells me she didn’t know…” 

“You think!” Taeyeon bit out. 

“When?” Irene said with icy words. She saw her sister gulp before setting the pillow down. “Better yet, how long have you been keeping all this a secret?”

“Look, when it happened, I didn’t even know if it was true…” Taeyeon said. Irene continued to look at her and she eventually sighed. “Six years.” 

“SIX YEARS?!” Irene gasped out. “My sister got married and has been married for six years! Taeyeon what is going on!” 

“Hyoyeon was the one who told Sunny to do it! I didn’t know she was actually ordained! Or that Sooyoung had a LEGAL wedding license that was filed the next day!” Taeyeon exclaimed.

“That’s beside the point! You said you hadn’t seen Tiffany in years! Ten years to be specific!” Irene yelled.

“About that…” Taeyeon began sheepishly.

“There was a year that the girls all came to find me.” Tiffany said, continuing for her sister. Irene spotted her next to the entrance of the hall. She had a nervous smile as she sat down on the lazy boy beside Taeyeon’s spot on the couch. “I was actually in town and somehow Sooyoung and Sunny caught wind of it. Poor Taeyeon was out of her wits when she saw me. So in a spur of the moment decision, Hyoyeon had the idea that I couldn’t leave if we got married because then I would be a wife. And of course, Sunny smiled and said that she hosted our ‘wedding.’ I mean we had all had enough to drink at the point where anything seemed like a phenomenal idea. So we did, we just weren’t aware of how legal it was. I only found out Friday.” 

“This is ridiculous,” Irene muttered. She looked at her sister with angry eyes. “And you didn’t think to get a divorce? An annulment? SOMEONE TO DOUBLE CHECK YOU DIDN’T GO INSANE?!”

“I didn’t realize it was real until the year after it happened. I didn’t know where Tiffany was! She up and left the next morning, apparently, her psycho dad had her uncle threaten her to leave.”

“You know Tae, I don’t even know what to think anymore,” Irene said pinching her nose. “You know Yuri and Jessica, you had a girlfriend before who I then thought broke you into pieces only to find out she was actually held hostage by her own family, but turns out you married her anyway, you have kept that from me for six years, and still can’t manage to tell me anything before someone spills your secrets out in front of me!” 

“Irene, I didn’t think it was necessary-”

“Not necessary?!” Irene yelled out, cutting Taeyeon off. She shot up from the couch and looked at her sister directly. “Tae, I have lived with you most of my life! We are sisters, we are supposed to know things about each other! Even sisters who hate each other know if their own sister is MARRIED!” Taeyeon looked at Irene with wide eyes. “So imagine my surprise when my nerdy, single for life sister apparently has a whole life she lived that I wasn’t able to share in! At least Mom and Papa don’t know about the marriage.” 

“About that…” Taeyeon said softly. Irene looked at her in disbelief. 

“They know?” Taeyeon nodded. “When did they find out.” 

“About two years after it happened.” 

“Unbelievable,” Irene said. “Do you all just spontaneously decide to keep me in the dark or is there a genuine wager to see how much you all can keep from me.” 

“Irene-” 

“NO!” Irene shouted, cutting Taeyeon off. “Mom and Papa and you always think I don’t know but I do. Mom and Papa want to move abroad and tell me you offered to take over my guardianship, nope, they asked you if you could make sure I stayed in a steady school and let you take music instead of business to compensate for babysitting me. Papa breaks his arm in a landscaping fiasco, turns out you all went to the Alps while I was at cheer camp. All these small things I could deal with Tae because I knew that you didn’t really want to hide anything. You didn’t mind me staying, or leaving vacation to pick me up from camp and take me to the movies every day the week after. I could always count that I knew you. You were stable for me.” Irene could feel the tears in her eyes stinging. “And now here we are, with your sec